Yuánbāo jīngzhuàn 元包經傳
The Original-Wrap Classic with Transmission [-Commentary] by 衛元嵩 (Wèi Yuánsōng, fl. 560–575, 北周, zhuàn 撰); transmission by 蘇源明 (Sū Yuánmíng, Tang); annotation by 李江 (Lǐ Jiāng, Tang); phonetic-gloss by 韋漢卿 (Wéi Hànqīng, Sòng); with appended Yuánbāo shù zǒngyì 元包數總義 in 2 juàn by 張行成 (Zhāng Xíngchéng, Southern Sòng)
About the work
A 5-juan cosmological-numerological treatise from the late Northern-Zhōu period, modeled on Yáng Xióng’s KR3g0001 Tàixuán jīng but using the Guīcáng 歸藏 (Returning-Storehouse) hexagram-arrangement of the Yìjīng tradition. Where the standard Yìjīng arrangement begins with Qián (Heaven) and Kūn (Earth) at the head, the Guīcáng arrangement (associated with the legendary Shāng dynasty’s variant Yì-tradition) begins with Kūn (Earth) and proceeds through the eight trigrams in a different sequence. The Yuánbāo takes Kūn as its head; then Qián, Duì, Gèn, Lí, Kǎn, Xùn, Zhèn — seven transformations × eight (the original head plus the seven transformed) = 8 × 8 = 64 hexagrams, each with attached statements (xìcí 繫辭) interpreting its cosmological significance.
The work’s reception has been mixed. The Sòng-period scholar Yáng Jí 楊楫 prefaced an edition that praised the work as a recovered ancient classic; the Sòng commentator Zhāng Xíngchéng 張行成 (active mid-12th century) added the Yuánbāo shù zǒngyì 2-juan supplement at Línqióng 臨卭 (in Sìchuān) in Shàoxīng era (1131–1162), drawing on broader Yì-related materials to “penetrate the [Yuánbāo’s] purport”. But the Míng-period bibliographer Wáng Shìzhēn 王世貞 doubted the work’s authenticity (“[suspecting it for] reliance-and-imitation”), and the Sìkù editors largely confirm Wáng’s doubt: the work is “nothing more than imitating the Tàixuán ‘s frowning” and is “not used by any divination-house”, being preserved only “because of its long transmission”.
The 提要 carefully reconstructs the textual transmission: the work appears in the Tang Yìwén zhì and the Sòng Chóngwén zǒngmù — so it cannot have been “for over 500 years not heard in the world” as Yáng Jí’s preface claims (the preface’s date is Dàguān gēngyín = 1110). The 提要 follows Wáng Shìzhēn in suspecting the Sòng-period (or earlier) recension may be a reconstruction or pseudepigraph rather than the genuine Northern-Zhōu original.
The current transmission integrates Zhāng Xíngchéng’s Zǒngyì with the principal Jīngzhuàn under a single edition (per Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 Jígǔgé 汲古閣 edition that the Sìkù descends from). The Sìkù editors note the integration as a long-established custom and follow Máo Jìn’s arrangement.
For the principal author and his complex biography, see 衛元嵩. For the parallel Yìjīng-paralleling Tàixuán tradition, see KR3g0001. The Tang transmitter Sū Yuánmíng (蘇源明) appears occasionally in late-Tang literary sources but lacks an independent person note here; same for Lǐ Jiāng (李江), Wéi Hànqīng (韋漢卿), and Zhāng Xíngchéng (張行成).
Tiyao
[Full text in source file. Dated Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month.]
Translations and research
- Limited substantial secondary literature. The work has rarely been engaged with in modern scholarship.
- Wilhelm, Hellmut. “Heaven, Earth, and Man in the Book of Changes”, in his collected lectures (background on the Yìjīng-related cosmological-numerological tradition).
- Forke, Alfred. Geschichte der mittelalterlichen chinesischen Philosophie (treats Wèi Yuánsōng in the broader Yì-tradition context).
Other points of interest
The 提要’s striking observation that “the divination-houses do not use [the Yuánbāo] for divination” — preserving the work only as a literary-historical artifact rather than as a working divinatory text — is a clear editorial signal that the Sìkù placement in the shùshù (numerological) class is administrative-categorial rather than substantive.
The political-and-religious complexities of Wèi Yuánsōng’s biography — Buddhist monk turned anti-Buddhist persecutor turned political prophet — make him one of the more historically-charged authors in the shùshù division. The 提要’s sober treatment of these complexities, citing both Buddhist apologetic sources (Dàoxuān) and political documents (Wēn Dàyǎ’s Chuàngyè qǐjūzhù), demonstrates the late-Qīng kǎojù methodology applied to a politically-and-religiously-fraught Northern-Zhōu / early-Tang figure.
Links
- ctext.org: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=569524 (Sìkù 提要 j. 108)